Check Types
The exact check types available in your account vary by account or user permissions.
Apica offers two main “tiers” of check types based on the complexity of the check: Standard and Advanced. In addition, Apica offers the Desktop Application Check for Native Application Monitoring. Refer to the following list to determine whether a check type is Standard or Advanced.
Standard Check Types:
SLA/Uptime (URLv2)
Diagnostic (Traceroute, Ping, Port, etc.)
DNSv2 (Domain Delegation, Resolver, DNS Security, etc.)
FTP (FTP/SFTP login)
Security (SSL Hostname Validation, Resource Integrity, etc.)
Advanced Check Types:
Browser (Google Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer)
Mobile Device (iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows Phone)
ZebraTester
API Tools (Postman)
Scripted Checks (Python, Java, etc.
Desktop Application Check (DAC)
Check details are shown in the table below. The first column indicates the check type name and the “tier” of the check - whether the check is Standard or Advanced.
Type / Standard or Advanced?
Icons
Description
Real Browser Checks (Advanced)
Use this check type when you need to understand how a real, instrumented, browser agent processes the loading and execution of a web page. Whether this is a single web page or a login sequence and shopping sequence of page, the real browser not only loads the primary content of the target, but also loads and executes the JavaScript, CSS, 3rd party calls, ads, social media widgets, beacons, and all other content on that webpage. This complete view allows a company to understand the full context of web performance with all content that is displayed on a webpage and when combined with multiple locations, allows insights into both native and 3rd party DNS, TCP Connect times, Network and application latency, content page weight, and caching performance.
Note that a Google Chrome check will utilize the most up to date web browser experience. Chrome checks offer the largest number of browser versions ranging from Google Chrome v23 to a modern version number. Look in your ASM account for the actual latest browser version as it will change as Chrome releases newer versions. Firefox and Internet Explorer checks are designed for legacy web pages which are meant to be run on older versions. The latest available version of Firefox is FF46 and the latest available version of Internet Explorer is IE11.
Mobile Device Checks (Advanced)
When mobile devices access an application over cellular networks, these devices incur a number of content delivery issues that make the user experience very different from a desktop or wireless user:
Lower cellular bandwidth
Increased cellular latency
Lower processing CPU power
Smaller screens which need to display content not optimized for mobile
Given these challenges, combined with the increasing use of mobile devices generally, mobile experience monitoring is becoming as important as desktop experience monitoring.
SLA/Uptime Checks (Standard)
Service Level Agreement and Uptime are generally industry terms that demonstrate availability of a website/application/server over a certain period of time. Whether this is a homepage, shopping cart, or a login page, monitoring uptime and availability of a single URL can be critical to the success of an entire transaction.
Desktop Application Checks (Advanced)
The Desktop Application Check must be installed on a private agent. DAC checks do not run from public locations.
Other Checks (Advanced)
Command Line Checks: This command check icon is enabled only for customers who have On-Premises or Apica Private Agents. Since command checks might need to execute an uploaded binary to the executing agent, they are not available for the Apica SaaS service. The wizard icon should be only be seen by select On-Premises customers; for them to run a specific command-line interface command with associated arguments on their own internal Apica agent.
ZebraTester: (formerly known as ProxySniffer) is a load-testing scripting tool which works by intercepting and recording the GET and POST calls in a transaction and then saves this sequence as a load testing “scenario”. Apica can also use these scenarios as operational monitoring checks over time.
This means that a sequence of recorded events (a scenario) can be replayed over, from different agents to get a long-term set of performance over time and various distances from the application.
Use-cases: For network and operations centric performance measurement over time and not browser/User Experience time. Unlike full Selenium scripts where the CSS, JS content and browser execution/rendering times are recorded, load testing focuses on application server response and content download time. So, while the same CSS and JS components may be downloaded, these ASM ZT checks will not measure beyond that response time.
Zebratester scenarios also have the ability to identify and extract/return dynamic session variables which change frequently from session to session.
Api Tools (Advanced)
Postman Checks: Postman checks allow end users to upload Postman collections to ASM so they can be monitored in real time. Checks return a wide variety of useful response data, including endpoint response time, response payload, and more.
URL-XI Checks: Apica’s advanced REST API testing solution. Deprecated.
API Tools must be installed on a private agent. These checks do not run from public locations.
Diagnostic Checks (Standard)
Traceroute: Determines the routing path of a request and/or network node(s) that are causing latency
Cisco service status: Returns uptime status of a Cisco service with a given endpoint and service name
Ping: Tests the responsiveness of a host or IP address. May not work if that host/IP has been configured to not respond to Pings.
Port: Tests the responsiveness of a host or IP address at a particular port number.
DNS v2 Checks (Standard)
As the diagram to the left shows, there are IPv4 and IPv6 versions of all but “Domain Expiration Date” DNS checks.
Domain Delegation: verifies that the delegation information is consistent between the parent name servers and the child name servers.
Domain Expiration Date: displays number of days until domain registration expiration.
DNS Security: tests DNS environment for vulnerabilities
Hostname Integrity: looks up a hostname and verifies that the query response from one of the authoritative name servers returns the correct answer(s).
Mail (MX) Record: validates that the MX records resolves to the MX the expected records.
Resolver: tests the iterative ability of a resolver.
Response time: verifies the response times from the check agent to the DNS Server.
Domain availability: queries each authoritative name server for the specified domain to provide SOA information.
FTP (Standard)
Validates that an FTP or SFTP login is available and accepting logins.
Use case: For active and critical FTP/SFTP server(s), this monitors that the login service is working and allows users to interact with the service.
SSL (Standard)
Four SSL checks deal with SSL information and certificates.
Use case: SSL is vital today for all HTTPS communications to/from your secured servers. So, ensure that (1) your server hostnames can connect, (2) the server’s installed certificate is active or that you are ready for its renewal, (3) the certificate that you installed has not been corrupted/intercepted/replaced by a forged certificate, and (4) the resources that you call have not been tampered with (i.e. have a level of integrity you can rely on).
Hostname: SSL Hostname Validation checks whether a connection can be established to a specific hostname and will fail if the server does connect.
Certificate: SSL Certificate Expiration checks whether the SSL certificate for the domain is about to expire.
Fingerprint: SSL Fingerprint Validation matches a specified SSL Certificate Fingerprint.
Resource Integrity: Ensures the integrity of a remote resource URL and that no man-in-the-middle has corrupted the URL. Uses a checksum/hash calculation algorithm (md5, SHA1, SHA2/256) to calculate the expected hash to compare with.
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